Much sports fishing today is done at night or in low light conditions. It is commonly recognized that using fishing lures or other attractors that are provided with a phosphorescent or photoluminous (glow-in-the-dark) material enhances the possibility of attracting certain types of sport fish. As is well-known, the glow or illumination from such phosphorescent or photoluminous material can last for a relatively short period of time and must therefore be periodically reactivated. Such activation is generally provided by exposing the phosphorescent or photoluminous material to a relatively intense source of light.
Fishermen typically use incandescent light sources such as flashlights, vehicle headlights, or Coleman-type lanterns for reactivating the photoluminous material. Such reactivation has not proven very satisfactory in that reactivation by such light sources requires an undue period of time and the photoluminous material is not reactivated sufficiently to produce the level of luminosity which many fisherman desire and find useful.
Flash attachments from personal cameras have also been used to reactivate such photoluminous material. While the light from such device is intense, it is also designed to spread out, thereby requiring several illuminating flashes in order to achieve the desired level of luminosity of the lure. Multiple flashes from a flash attachment necessary to achieve the degree of luminosity desired also have the disadvantage of unduly discharging the battery that operates the flash attachment.
Other devices used to illuminate fishing lures, such as that depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,413 to Farmer et al., enable piling the objects in the bottom of a chamber. However, the piled objects in such devices can mask certain portions of some of the objects from the light and therefore create “shadows” or non-activated portions on the objects.
There is a need then in the industry for a device that can concentrate the light from a source on an object to be illuminated, such as a fishing lure, and achieve a satisfactory degree of luminosity in the object with a minimal amount of illumination from a light source.